Contact lenses have been developed to correct compromised vision when worn. Conventional contact lenses may be comprised of “hard” (rigid gas permeable) material or “soft” (hydrogel) material. “Soft” contact lenses are generally believed to be more comfortable, and are more commonly used than hard contact lenses particularly in recent years.
Even disposable contact lenses (except those designed to be replaced daily) require daily sanitation. Generally, the contact lenses are removed from a user's eyes and placed in a bi-sectioned receptacle (e.g., one lens per section), whereupon a solution is added to remove pollutants, bacteria, and other impurities. Typically, it is recommended that contact lenses be soaked in a solution for at least four hours. However, the recommended usage may not account for actual usage. That is, a contact lens wearer that wears a pair of contact lenses for a long period of time (i.e., a day or more) will naturally accumulate greater amounts of deposits. Also, climate and environmental factors (e.g., areas with greater than normal activity of dust, wind, and/or an ocean elements) may also lead to the accumulation of a greater than normal amount of impurities and deposits such as proteins and lipids, on a daily basis. As a result, sanitizing a pair of contacts may require more time than some contact lens wearers expect. Moreover, diligently keeping track of a daily sanitization process repeated over a considerable period of time (e.g., years) is user intensive—for example, a contacts lens wearer must not only note the time a contact lens is removed from their eye for sanitation, but also accurately calculate a sufficient duration for the lenses to be in the solution for the lenses to be suitable for re-use.
In addition, a contact lens solution is designed to be disposed after every single usage. This is necessary to maintain the efficacy of the solution for lens cleaning and decontamination. However, many users either reuse the same solution (often for several days at a time), and/or merely “top off” their used solution with fresh solution, rather than using fresh solution each time they put their lenses in the case. This reuse and topping off leads to an increased likelihood of eye infection, including very serious and potentially blinding infections, resulting from wearing insufficiently sanitized contact lenses. Reuse and topping off also reduces the likelihood that the lens will be sufficiently cleaned and that all protein and other deposits will be removed during the soaking process, thus making the lens less comfortable to wear and potentially more irritating, which can in turn cause individuals to cease the use of contact lenses entirely. The proteins and other deposits on the contact lenses may also cause infection of the eyes.
Similarly, many eye care specialists recommend that contact lens wearers rinse out their contact lens cases with contact lens solution after each usage (e.g., daily). Here too, contact lens wearers are seldom compliant. Instead of following the recommended instructions, contact lens wearers either do not wash the case out or do so with water, which introduces microbes into the case, which in turn may introduce those same microbes on to the contact lens themselves, and eventually into the contact lens wearer's eye(s).